


The Weight of Words

by fullmetalpetticoat



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Some slurs, Violence, Words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 04:41:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6456271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullmetalpetticoat/pseuds/fullmetalpetticoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone handles criticism in their own way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weight of Words

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off a prompt for another fandom that I read once, which was based off the same prompt but for a completely different fandom. Basically the words people use to describe you end up on your skin like tattoos. They grow/shrink/darken/fade/etc with severity and usage. Also I wasn't sure what to rate it so I just went with M to be safe?

For the first few years, if one is lucky, one is unmarred. Skin unblemished– clear, blank, silent. Strangers have few things to say of others' children strong enough to raise it to the skin. What they say are mild compliments, common words, floating through the spaces in between each person. Unremarkable. Mothers and fathers sing much of the same praises, but they're heavier when they come from blood. They paint precious little words on their children, so faint and in places so inconspicuous it takes years to grow and darken and lay claim.  
  
A child whose skin is marred with unkind words and curses is a pitied thing; slandered before they have even had a chance to earn it. Someone who paints a child's skin with contempt holds their place nearest to the devil himself, for who would do such a thing?  
  
Rachel notices the word on a bright spring day, sitting between Alexander's shoulders like a birthmark. He runs shirtless through the yard with his brother, laughing. At that moment, she tucks it away for later, careful not to frighten her darling boys, uncertain whether she even saw it clearly at all. She pushes the brim of her hat down and tries to continue reading her book as tears trespass and threaten to fall.  
  
Later in the bath she runs her fingers through his curls and takes a closer look at the spot just below his neck, where faint, broad-stroke letters paint his skin. She rubs at it with her thumb, tries to scrub it away, too hard. Alexander flinches and she moves her hands back up to his hair, gently washing away the soap. She cries as quietly as she can, but her son turns and asks her if she's okay.  
  
“Just got some soap in my eyes is all,” she says.  
  
He is six years old, and _b_ _astard_ is stamped on his skin, and she cannot keep it from growing. She can only keep him from knowing – for now, for as long as she can, for as long as she is alive.  
  
Alexander is twelve when _bastard_ reaches its peak. He discovered it a few years back, as it is impossible to ignore. It's big and bold and loud, and it hurts. He can feel its weight, deepening in his skin with every passing day. He tosses and turns in bed some nights, because small town gossip never sleeps, and his father had left them only a couple years prior, leaving his mother his sole provider and “that sad little whore and her bastard son” and he _knows_ that word is on her somewhere, wants to find it and rewrite it.  
  
He knows he truly has no control over it, but he compliments her every chance he gets. He showers her in scarring kindness, campaigns to send a blight of grace and affection over her entire body. She never shows him the product of his efforts, except one night when she pushes the sleeves of her dress up to her elbow. Light, elegant script paints her arm. _Kind_ rests atop her wrist on one arm. _Beautiful_ lays on the underside on the other, stretching from elbow to palm.  
  
The largest, the darkest, and her proudest – she says – is _mother._ It reaches almost to her shoulder.  
  
For a brief time in his life, _sick_ appears on his left palm, as though it was not already obvious. A few days later its twin omen _dying_ appears on his right, and he panics with all the energy he has left. His mother holds him tightly, wrapping him up with all the loving words he has said to and about her in his short life, and he can finally see them. She holds out her hands, palms up, _sick_ and _dying_ bold and deep like wounds, and he covers them with his own.  
  
Those words fade to nothing eventually, but he can always see the shadows, the ghosts of them, on his hands. One night he's knocked to his knees from the pain in his chest. _Orphan_ bleeds in big, black, damning letters right over his heart, growing and darkening with every second and crippling him with a bright fiery agony. On the floor of the bedroom he curls into himself, one arm reaching out and grasping at the air, a myriad of small insults on his tan skin.  
  
Three days his mother has been dead, and already they've started scratching their words into him.  
  
Soon he returns to normal life, and the people get to know him. _Bastard_ remains – it will always remain. But other words fade into existence as well. _Hardworking_ along his flank. _Smart_ on his thigh. _Handsome_ starts wrapping its way around his calf. He rolls his sleeves up with pride as he works in the clerk's office, exposing his compliments and flexing his praise-gilded fingers around the quill. Patrons look upon his hands in wonderment. _Quick, funny, clever, dedicated, charming._ He is adorned and now they can see it.  
  
Before he departs someone takes his hands in theirs and slips fine gloves onto them. “Careful,” they say, “on the mainland they will say whatever they like, whether it is true or not. Only you know.” They pat his hands, squeeze them between theirs.  
  
_Only you know.  
_

 

* * *

  
“John, please look me over. They were staring at me and whispering,” Alexander says, pulling off his shirt in a haste. He's still wet from the river, dripping onto the floor of their shared tent.  
  
John looks up from his book with open hands. “Don't they always?”  
  
“John, please! Just look.” Alexander looks over his shoulder, wide eyed and exposed.  
  
With a heavy sigh, John sets his book aside and beckons the lieutenant colonel to come closer. He knows his back as well as he knows his front at this point, and he has been forced by incident to memorize all the words on his body more so than he made it a point to do so. The only thing he makes a point to do is to observe the words he's branded on Alexander grow darker and bigger with each day, each whispered sentiment into his skin.  
  
He looks for a moment, searching the poem of his chest for a word he might not have noticed. It's unedited. He then searches the literature of his back, glancing over the slur across his broad shoulders and finding something out of place farther down. “Oh,” he says, running his fingers over a place on the small of his back. Several times he opens his mouth to say it, but he can't make himself do so.  
  
“What?” Alexander asks. “What, what does it say?” He tries to twist around to look at it, but from his angle it must be lost among the compliments. John wants to advise him against worrying about it, but he knows that will do no good. He clears his throat and rubs his open hand over the word.  
  
“ _Pet,_ ” he says, and his voice cracks. He clears his throat. “Pet,” he says again.  
  
Alexander looks at him over his shoulder. “What is that supposed to mean?”

* * *

  
There isn't much known about the General's words. Everyone knows he must have some, at least a few, one would think. Everyone has words; no one is completely unknown or unspoken of. _They're all at the center of him, like a book,_ they say when he's elsewhere. _He has as many bad words as good, that's why he doesn't show any of them.  
  
_ General Washington hides his well. Thankfully, the bulk of them congregate around his thighs, over his chest and back like scars. Most are what one would expect for a General. _Strong_ along his sword arm, _wise_ along the other. There is _excellency_ sitting atop his chest like a brand. _Capable_ and _relentless, brave_ and _cunning,_ those and others are scattered across his back and stomach, and he is grateful.  
  
_Tall_ and _big_ run up the sides of his body, bend and twist with it and they will likely never leave because they will likely always be true. _Quiet_ is bigger than _loud_ , though he is equally capable of (and frequently is) both. The morning he woke up and saw _terrifying_ in the mirror he laughed the hardest he had in months.  
  
_Traitor_ curls up and around his thigh like a snake. At first when he noticed it, early on in his career, he huffed with amusement. Now it grows bigger and darker every day and it will never leave. _Rebel_ is elsewhere, but it's so small as to be almost insignificant, in part because, he suspects, his critics across the ocean prefer the weight that _traitor_ carries in particular.  
  
_Coward_ dances along his calf, for his retreats. _Foolish_ and _naive_ run alongside it. He supposes he shouldn't ruminate on them such – words like that should come easily to someone who was so prolific in the failures of his early military career, failures that he has readily taken responsibility for.  
  
Sleep comes hardest to the General, who dwells in nightmares in which _failure_ and _mad_ and _murderer_ and _incompetent_ mar his hands for his men and all the world to see.  
  
Occasionally those nightmares cling to him in his waking hours, when he sits at his desk and turns his hands over in front of his face, seeing the shadows of the words on his skin, blinking his eyes until his hands are as they always were – unmarked.  
  
“Sir?” comes a voice from the door.  
  
General Washington looks up from his hands and places them down on the desk. “Ah, Alex. Come in,” he says. He keeps his expression mild, veils his general sense of discomfort and his annoyance at his aide.  
  
Alexander sits across from him, holding a bundled uniform sash against his nose. Blood drips down onto his coat as he sits. One of his eyes has already swollen shut, purple and yellow blotches crawl down to his cheekbone. There's a deep cut on his lip and the young man has his jaw hanging to keep from disturbing the wound, tongue pressed against his lower teeth. He has the nerve to stare at the General with his remaining good eye.  
  
“Son,” Washington says, “What did you do now?”

* * *

  
It starts favorably enough. A walk through the camp at dusk, while the lieutenant colonels share a bit of peace and easy conversation.  
  
They pass a campfire, a group of men around it, when Alexander hears something on his peripheral. A word that's been haunting him for days, followed by a round of ugly laughter.  
  
He stops walking, and John takes a few steps before noticing and turning back, giving the man a questioning look. Alexander stares at him in want for something to ground him, because he's moments away from doing something _rash_ – a word that paints the gulf next to his hipbone.  
  
_Pet_ burns.  
  
He knows he heard correctly when he approaches the men and half of them look terrified. A couple are laughing, trying not to laugh, and one stares him down behind his half-lidded, drunken trance. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” Alexander says cordially, “Were you speaking to me?”  
  
“Alexander, let's just move on,” John says quietly behind him.  
  
The one man looks between him and John, scrutinizing them and trying to keep his eyes open at the same time. A few of the other men look at him cautiously and scoot farther away from the lieutenant colonel.  
  
“Look, boys!” His mouth stretches into a wide smile. “Washington's _pets_ have deigned to grace us with their-” Alexander's fist connects with the man's mouth accurately enough for his teeth to shred his knuckles. A spray of blood flies and splatters his friends before his body has even hit the ground.  
  
From behind them, John inhales sharply.  
  
Someone jumps on Alexander's back and digs their fingertips in his face, trying and succeeding in disorienting him just long enough for another to punch him – _hard –_ in the stomach. He grabs the assailant by the wrist and neck and twists him to the ground, which also displaces the man on his back to the ground near the fire, and John is on him.  
  
He's got the man on the ground and tries to pin him, but he ends up grappling with him, trading punches. One good shot gets him in the eye and he's blinded, followed by an uppercut to the jaw that throws him back. The force of it snaps his mouth shut, and while he's grateful that his tongue was in his mouth when it happened, his teeth bite through his lip. He spits the blood back in the face of his opponent before an arm wraps around his neck and he's pulled away.  
  
John still has one on the ground and one on his back, and that's all Alexander sees before he's held in a tense sitting position by two men, the fight draining out of him quickly. The man he originally punched in the mouth has come to, apparently, and stands before him, arm pulled back. When his blow lands, Alexander feels and tastes the rush of blood before he feels the pain in his nose and he thinks _it's absolutely broken._ Though, six-to-two if his count is correct. Not as hurt as he would have expected, considering the odds. John will likely be angry, however.  
  
Might as well go for it, then, he thinks. He lashes out, deflects another blow to his face, catches his captors off guard and gains a bit more reach than he expected. His hand finds the belt of his attacker and he yanks. The man falls on top of him, and Alexander uses his loss of equilibrium to knock out his arms from under him, grab the sides of his head, and ram his forehead into his nose.  
  
A shot fires through the commotion, followed by angry, panicked shouting. The hands around his shoulders fall away. Alexander pushes the stunned man up and off of him, and lets his arms fall to the dirt, sucking in air through the blood and pain.  
  
“Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton! Sir!” Someone is above him, has their hands on his face and he has half a mind to demand they let him be. He blinks open his eye, swipes his sleeve across it delicately, careful not to touch his nose. John Laurens is crouching in front of him, split lip and nothing more. He always was good at protecting his face.  
  
“He's fine,” John says to someone. Alexander looks around him, sees one man unconscious, two writhing on the ground, and three more held in place a few paces away. So, he was right.  
  
The man with the gun, a Major by the looks of it, scowls at him. “Crazy bastard,” he says, “Take him to General Washington.”  
  
“No,” Alexander bites back, sucks in a breath and pushes up his sleeve. He grimaces at _crazy_ now crawling along his arm. It was almost completely faded, too.

* * *

  
The Marquis de Lafayette is a greatly spoken-of man. His every move is observed, either out of suspicion or curiosity – it hardly matters, and the thoughts on those observations are painted on his skin. Despite every man and woman being under the same conditions, he still thinks it uniquely unfair. If he were less hungry for glory he would condemn himself to complete obscurity – he thinks such is the unobtainable compromise.  
  
He once wrote to his wife: _would one think it better to be completely unknown – or as close to – and have one's body completely free of commentary, than to be damaged like the ground one walks upon simply for the luxury of companionship?  
  
_ She wrote back: _I cannot imagine you in obscurity, or in any regard other than of fame, my dearest. You hold yourself to the highest standard, so the words you carry must be favorable, you should wear them with pride. Besides, my love, as much as you have been trained in such a manner, one's cosmetic circumstance – and your own – has never been a matter of_ _highest_ _importance to you.  
  
_ Of course she would say that. Though, in France she is spoken of very well. Her body is painted – _painted –_ in lovely words, elegant and delicate, ever a testament to her consistent compassion. Every night he hoped his activities in the colonies would not disrupt that mosaic, but if it did, she never told him.  
  
For the Marquis, he goes with his gut. At first, he was as genuine as possible, tested how that fit with the revolutionaries and observed how the words on his body changed.  
  
Every morning, he takes his small mirror and surveys the words and their depth and size, and plans from there. Like the tactician he is, he goes by the words, he reaches a favorable position and runs with it until it's nothing but bones, and then readjusts. It wasn't long before the men liked him implicitly, but he still checks every morning.  
  
He hides every single word. His fine white gloves cover his marked hands – _why, why are there so many on his hands_ – and he wears his cravat high. He bathes alone, remains an enigma to the troops, though his dearest friends have perhaps seen some of his words, but they had shared theirs so openly – it was simply polite. The doctor has seen a few, that is simply a matter of necessity.  
  
No, _he_ knows every word on his body, can trace them with his fingers – and does sometimes, through the cloth of his uniform – and trusts no one but Adrienne with the full glossary of his body, and that will likely never change.

* * *

  
“Mister Vice President,” he says calmly, regarding the eccentric figure and the upward turn of his predatory smile with an even stare. He looks at the men seated next to him. “Mister Madison, Senator Burr.” He greets them each in turn and then splays open his hands. “What is this?”  
  
“We have evidence of illicit activity between you and a Mister James Reynolds,” Madison begins, so composed and languid for someone so blunt. He seems almost at all times preoccupied by the world around him, but Alexander is not so naive as to underestimate him.  
  
“Ring any bells?” Jefferson drawls, smiling wide.  
  
“Illicit?” Alexander asks, eyes searching the ceiling, feigning deeper thought. “No.”  
  
“We have proof of large sums of money passing between the two of you,” Burr interjects, as always.  
  
“Check stubs, a paper trail,” Jefferson says.  
  
“Almost a thousand dollars total,” Burr says.  
  
“Back in ninety-one,” Jefferson says, leaning in. “Still nothing?”  
  
Alexander looks between the three of them. “No,” he says finally.  
  
“Mister Hamilton, you are in a unique position, and as such have the means and the avenues to _disturb_ the flow of money coming into the national bank,” Madison gently prompts.  
  
“Correct,” Alexander replies instantly. He feels the blood rise to his face, he feels his heart thundering in rage. “If I were to do such a thing,” he bites, “it would be easy.”  
  
“So, you confess!” Burr says.  
  
“No. Not until you tell me exactly what you're accusing me of.”  
  
“Embezzlement,” Madison says simply, looking the treasury secretary up and down.  
  
“ _Speculation,_ ” Jefferson unfurls the word like a missive, enunciating every syllable pointedly.  
  
“No! This is ridiculous.” He turns to leave.  
  
Jefferson speaks up again. “So you have no proof of your innocence?”  
  
His hand is on the doorknob when he says it. He's so close to freedom and yet he anchors himself to the moment – whether he leaves under suspicion or tells them the ugly truth, they will run with it and ruin him, but at least with the truth he could use it as a weapon, point it and shoot when it would serve him best. They were left with an accusation, a guess, and some receipts they have no context for.  
  
Instead of leaving he makes the obviously bad choices of staying, of turning and approaching Jefferson until they are an inch apart. “I do,” he says quietly. “It's not here, and it's not for you.”  
  
“Perhaps he keeps it close to the heart,” Madison says. Alexander turns and watches as Madison rounds him slowly, and he curses himself for underestimating him. Easily the largest out of the trio, he knew the man might use that against him someday, but it remained in the shadow of his gentle, infirmed countenance. “Perhaps he keeps it where all men keep their secrets, hm?”  
  
Jefferson catches on immediately. “Why don't you show us what you've got under your shirt, Hamilton?”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“Go on, surely Reynolds has said something about you. You can't have been completely unspoken of in this little heist of yours.”  
  
“It was not a heist! It was not anything of your concern,” Alexander spits back.  
  
“Senator, would you hold the Treasury Secretary down?” Madison asks calmly.  
  
Aaron Burr looks from Hamilton to Madison and back again. Alexander fixes him with a stare loaded with promises that Burr knows all too well he's willing to follow through on. Burr looks back at Madison and shakes his head. “With all due respect, sir, I won't. Not alone, anyway.”  
  
“Well _someone_ do it already, so we can see what he's hiding and be done with it,” Jefferson starts pulling his white gloves off, finger by finger.  
  
“No!” Alexander pivots where he stands, holding his hands up in defense. “This is an outrageous violation of privacy, you can't read the words under a man's clothes without his consent!”  
  
Jefferson leans against the desk, tucking his gloves into his jacket. “So?” he chirps, staring at his hands. Words are printed along his fingers, but they're too small and obscured, dark enough to blend well with his skin.  
  
Madison and Burr grab him while he's distracted trying to argue with Jefferson, and, while he does fight, the two of them have enough weight on him to bring him down to the ground quickly. Painfully, too, though they have no reason at all to be gentle.  
  
Jefferson sits on him immediately and begins undoing the buttons on his shirt – at least he has the decency to do so neatly. Madison and Burr both have their knees on his shoulders and his wrists in vice grips. He struggles as much as he is able, because he looks in the mirror every morning, he knows what they're going to see, and they have no right to it.  
  
“Oh, wow,” Jefferson says when he sits back and looks at Alexander. Since the war the words have only grown, in size and quantity, and variety. _Orphan_ is still big and ugly, but now other words, mostly insults, decorate his chest and stomach. Many of which are thanks to the three of them themselves. And now he's been put on display for them to see, made vulnerable like a turtle whose shell is cracked and left out in the sun.  
  
Jefferson's expression says it all. He's surprised, thoughtful, but it's the small bit of smugness, the flash of being impressed with himself that passes across his features that does it. Alexander wants to throttle him, but all he can do when Madison and Burr release his wrists is let his hands drop to the floor. His chest heaves with the effort of struggling, of resisting the urge to put his hands around the Vice President's throat, and his building rage.  
  
“ _Scoundrel,”_ Jefferson says, pressing a finger into his skin, right above his stomach. “For what, Mister Hamilton?”  
  
Alexander sighs. “If I tell you, will you let me up? Will you just let me go and forget we ever had this conversation?”  
  
The three of them share a look in silence, and then all rise up from him at once. Alexander pushes himself to a sitting position, slowly buttons his shirt, and begins. He doesn't bother getting to his feet.

* * *

  
When he told the trio in confidence, Jefferson had asked: “How do you keep it from your wife?”  
  
Alexander had responded: “Not easily.”  
  
And it was true. He lay with her in the dark when he could, would check his corners before undressing. It was a nightmare. And once, she did see it. He disarmed her with: _oh you know, the men in the cabinet like to say anything._ He doubted it would be so easy, but she trusted him, so the lie stuck, and he grew more disgusted with himself with each passing day.  
  
Every day he looked in the mirror and parsed out the words and read them to himself and told himself he could live with them. He had no choice, really. But he could not withstand anything worse. He could not be a liar or a coward; he never had been before.  
  
So when the Reynolds Pamphlet came out, Alexander anticipated it would calm the waters of his political career, after the initial outburst, of course. He could not be called a _thief_ or a _traitor_ or any such thing, nothing of the sort would mark his skin for all the world to see.  
  
And… they had not. But when Eliza banished him to his office at night, he found himself in a familiar place: on his knees in a dark room, the agony of everyone speaking about him at once rolling over his body like a fire. He stares at _liar_ on his hand and _adulterer_ fading into his skin just below his stomach.  
  
_Liar_ grows so big, it threatens to overtake his entire hand in one fractured word. He doesn't bother wearing gloves; he has no desire to hide it. He has been partly to blame for its growth, after all. He says it to himself every day.

* * *

  
“John! John, please- stop- John, no! Drop it, drop it, that's _enough_.” Alexander wrenches the knife from his friend's hand and tosses it over his shoulder. He grabs arms slick with blood and pins them to the floor, shifting the bulk of his weight to John's hips and that seems to immobilize the man enough for Alexander to review the damage.  
  
Clean, fine cuts over a few particular words: _insubordinate_ down his arm, _negligent_ down the other, _crazy, desperate, disappointment_ all scattered over his front, and _deviant_ too close to his neck. The cuts are shallow and John, aside from the heaving chest and the unrelenting flow of tears, seems fine. Alexander sighs and releases his wrists. “What were you thinking, John?”  
  
In response, John lets go of a shuddering breath. “I didn't mean to- I just- I wasn't, wasn't trying to-”  
  
“I know, I know,” Alexander says quietly, pushing away the stray hair out of John's face. “Shh, I know.”  
  
He stands up and scans the room. They've been – once again – given a room in the manor given to Washington for his housing, so there had to be something he could use. Surprisingly enough, the commotion he must have caused knocking John to the floor didn't seem to be loud enough to raise any alarm. That, or it's commonplace now. He thinks on the implication as he searches a closet, and finds a hearty linen shirt folded up near some shoes.  
  
“Sorry,” he says to no one in particular, grabs the shirt, and retrieves the knife from the floor. He cuts strips from the shirt and starts wrapping them around John's arms, around his neck, and he lays a few pieces upon the cuts on his chest and stomach. They don't bleed much, and when the linen hits his wounds the blood spreads for only a few seconds before stopping.  
  
“I'm trying, Alexander,” John says quietly as he's dressed. The tears have stopped, but he looks away in absolute misery. “I'm trying.”  
  
“Trying to do what, John?” Alexander has an idea. John acted as he wished, at the mercy of every impulse and gut reaction, and Alexander cherished him for it, but he struggled with reconciling his nature and how much he cared about the words on his body. For his words to be exclusively complimentary in a place like this, he would have to be careful. He would have to be mild, boring. He would never be these things. But he would claim to try to be.  
  
“What if my father sees?” John rubs the bandages along his arm, puts a hand to his neck. _Deviant,_ Alexander has to admit, is the result of poor luck, and even poorer luck that it would be in such a visible spot. His was along the inside of his thigh. “I need to get rid of them. I was only trying to render them illegible, Alexander, please believe me.”  
  
“Oh, I do,” Alexander says. He reaches over John to get at a bag he keeps under the desk, from which he pulls out a quill and a pot of ink. “And I have an idea.”

* * *

  
The General's hand grabs him by the back of the neck in one rough, sudden gesture of affection. "Get some sleep, son. Thank you for your help," he says, squeezes and lets go as quickly as he had latched on. Alexander rubs the back of his neck and wonders briefly if that was an uncharacteristic display of possessiveness or a quite characteristic example of the general being unaware of his own strength. His neck burns long after the contact, and later that night Alexander asks John to inspect.   
  
John peers at the back of his neck, pushing his hair out of the way with a light brush of his fingers. "It says _Son._ "   
  
Alexander stills for a moment, and John isn't sure if he heard him or not. "Thank you, John," Alexander says in a tight voice. He grabs his cravat and yanks it as high as it will go, and as he leaves John spots his face: red and furious. 

* * *

  
When the shallow cuts have healed, John lies down on the floor of their shared room with a pillow under his head while Alexander makes good on his proposal a week prior.  
  
Every time the point of the quill pricks his skin, he hisses. John Laurens, who could be shot and not notice until the skirmish is over, who fashions a sling out of his own uniform and moves on, suffers with small pain. He fidgets and Alexander smacks him gently with the back of his hand.  
  
“I wish I knew who was speaking of me like this,” he says after a while of sitting still.  
  
Alexander chuckles. “I wouldn't.”  
  
John peers over at Alexander, his mouth a flat line. “You wouldn't?”  
  
“No,” he mumbles, "It doesn't really matter." He has a thought, but he's concentrating on his task at hand. The words can't be completely changed or scratched out, but with perseverance and a little creativity he's managed to make them look more like designs. Some blocky, some twirling like wind and water's waves and John stares at them with a mixture of hesitance and awe.  
  
Alexander sits back and admires his work, and the rest of that thought comes back to him. “They will say whatever they like, whether it is true or not. Only you know,” he says distantly.

* * *

  
General Washington begins dressing in complete seclusion. He stares in the mirror and his hands shake.  
  
He pulls his cravat up to his chin, covering his neck, and tightens it, strangled by his shame, his fear of stigma.  
  
An unjust accusation. An undeserved sentiment. The implication that he has failed in some way to present himself properly, to inadvertently inspire an army through misplaced devotion.  
  
The word _father_ branded on his neck.

* * *

  
The Marquis tries to divorce himself from the words on his skin. He uses them as a tool, not as inspiration or nourishment for his ego. It's safer this way, he thinks. Others are affected by their words, consumed. He has seen men brought to tears, to absolute rage, to doubt and fear, and he doesn't understand.  
  
One day he notices _hero_ across the one large blank space still left on his chest, as though its spot reserved for that word alone. Over a few days he watches it grow and darken, in elegant but strong script.  
  
And he understands.

* * *

  
Alexander Hamilton sits in church, puts his hands together – _liar,_ faded but not completely vanished, against _father_ – and prays. He presses his face against his steepled fingers and closes his eyes, unspeakably tired.

* * *

  
Aaron Burr sits in the boat to Weehawken and stares at _dangerous_ light and vivid and ugly against the skin of his arm, the sleeve pulled and pinned up to his elbow for his accuser to see. He thumbs the trigger on his pistol and desperately tries to muster the nerve, the rage, the blind faith that Hamilton will absolutely aim at him and shoot, that he won't waste his shot.  
  
_He will shoot. He will shoot. He must shoot.  
  
_

* * *

  
Alexander never thought he would watch _dying_ return to the palm of his hand after it faded in his childhood. He never thought he would get the chance. That spot remained blank throughout his life and now he knows why.  
  
When he made a show of preparing his firearm before the duel, he thought he saw the word again on his palm, but blinked and it was gone. He battled with his decision regarding Burr only briefly, and knew there was only one outcome to the meeting between them. He hadn't been a man of fates, but some things are meant to be.  
  
He thinks of Eliza, he thinks of Phillip, he thinks of John and Washington and he thinks of his mother.  
  
He aimed for the sky. And he dies wading through an ocean of last words.

**Author's Note:**

> missmonomyth on tumblr, feel free to talk to me about stuff. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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